Team and Trail
Long distance sled dog races, or just trips by dogteam... My goal with this blog is simply to help support the history, spirit, passion and love for dog teams and the trails they run.


Friday, January 16, 2009

Delayed, Wet Kusko

Looks like another wet Kuskokwim 300 shaping up. Mike Campbell reported an update in today's Anchorage Daily News:

Wet, warm weather that's blanketed much of Alaska forced organizers of the world's richest middle-distance sled dog race to postpone today's scheduled start.

The 30th running of the $100,000 Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race, due to begin at 6:30 tonight, has been pushed back to 3 p.m. Saturday, with the shorter Bogus Creek 150 now due to start and hour later.

Some racers and organizers feared this week's warm-up would turn the race into a rerun of last year's "Kusko-swim" that turned the 300-mile trail from snow to water in 24 hours, pinning two mushers down 50 miles from the finish line and putting more than a dozen snowmachines underwater.

Martin Buser's wife Kathy has a good post at their Happy Trails Kennel blog:

Alaska Airlines is to be commended for it's unbelievable work in accommodating dogs and people through the entire ordeal. Ticketing, reticketing, moving dogs, working so hard to get dog teams and mushers into Bethel. Our flight included Jeff King, John Baker, Mitch Seavey and dogs, Ken Anderson and his dogs and Martin and our team. The service provided makes Alaska Airlines one of the most unique in the business, remaining flexible and working hard to get people and dogs where they need to be safely. We can't thank all the Airline people associated with this flight enough. They worked overtime and went way beyond the regular duties to make this trip as managable as possible.

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